


The Last Dance

by Sehnyusucht



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Javier is a ballet dancer, M/M, Partially Alternate Universe, Yuzuru is himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-11-02 11:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20733626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sehnyusucht/pseuds/Sehnyusucht
Summary: Three more days.He has to hold on for just three more days.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, this is my second fiction and it's connected with the first one.  
For the ones who didn't read "I Am the Storm": Javi and Yuzu met at GP 2018 in Helsinki, fell in love in Moscow (November 2018) and got together in Toronto (February 2019).  
For the ones who read "I Am the Storm": this is what happened in Berlin somewhere between chapter 11 and the epilogue...  
Thank you soooo much to my lovely beta, LadyLightning.  
I hope you will enjoy it!

Three more days.

He has to hold on for just three more days.

Javier slowly opens the cabinet over the kitchen counter and grabs a glass. He’s not thirsty, not really, but he needs to do something. Something different from listening to, from _feeling_ the pain in his hip.

Three more days. Tomorrow, morning class and rehearsals in the afternoon; the day after tomorrow, morning class and dress rehearsal; on Saturday, morning class and gala at night. And on Sunday he will be able to sit down, finally. Hoping that, afterwards, he will be able to stand up as well.

He silently turns on the faucet, fills the glass with water; then he turns to the window and looks through the curtains while drinking. The wind swings gently the leaves of the chestnut tree, the rustling of branches being the only sound in the courtyard – so whispering and spellbinding that it underlines the silence without breaking it. It’s a bright night; when Javier moved to Berlin years ago, it was July, just like now, and he spent some hours of his first nights just watching outside of the unshuttered windows: the sky was never too dark; there was a creamy, milky glow to it, as if the moon was trying to shine like the sun and couldn’t quite succeed. Javier had lived in Antwerp for a while, he knew how the northern light looked; and yet, in a poorly lit up town like Berlin, it took him a while to get used to this weird luminosity. What he was used to already, was the constant feeling of solitude; the loneliness stemming from putting ballet in front of anything and anyone else.

Three more days, and he won’t dance ballet anymore.

Javier turns away from the window, noiselessly put the glass into the sink. He should, he _must_ sleep. He needs to gather all possible strength and stamina to face three exhausting days while his hip hurts like hell. But he can’t lie in bed anymore. No matter which position he tries, his groin keeps throbbing, and too many muscles in his pelvis and left thigh keep aching. He can’t take more anti-inflammatories than he already does: it’s been quite a while now that he feels a constant pain in his stomach, and he would be so very pleased not to get an ulcer. Coxarthrosis is enough, thanks.

Javier rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. He’s so tired, dull with sleep, with exhaustion, with this steady, deep physical pain. Okay, he will settle into his armchair: it won’t be easy to fall asleep, but it’s a position that gives his hip some relief. He can stretch his legs on the pouffe, then…

“Habi.”

Yuzu is on the kitchen door. Messy hair, legs naked under the t-shirt he borrowed from Javier, the shadows of the leaves dancing on his cheeks. For a moment Javier forgets about the three days awaiting him and even about his pain. For a moment, there’s only love.

“Oh nene, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up. I tried to get up as…”

“You not wake me.” Yuzu shrugs. “Here so much silence.”

Javier smiles. “Yes, too much sometimes.” He takes a couple of steps, reaches for Yuzu’s cheek. It’s soft, warm, and one of the many knots constricting Javier’s chest unties. “You should go back to sleep, though. Jet lag is…”

“Is no problem for me, I used to it.” Yuzu rests his chin on Javier’s shoulder, kneading Javier’s hips with his hands. “You too must sleep. Hip hurt very much?”

Yuzu is the only one Javier never lies about his arthrosis to.

“Very very much, yes,” he says. “It’s a bit like when… when you need to pee, you know? You manage to control it, but as soon as you’re on the doorway, when the loo is finally within reach… that’s the moment when you’re really at risk to pee in your pants.” 

Yuzu chuckles briefly. Javier feels the vibrations of his voice on his own shoulder, his smile through the T-shirt.

“You not pee in pants, in these three days.” Yuzu lifts his head to stare at him. “You will make it. I know.”

Javier could make a joke about it, remind Yuzu that very few people can turn their words into reality, and usually those people are _not_ mere mortals. But he knows Yuzu well enough, now, to understand that his beliefs are creative forces.

“I wish I could trust myself as much as you do,” he says, rubbing his nose against Yuzu’s.

“Is no trust, is knowle… knowles…”

“Knowledge?”

“That.”

Yuzu slips his arms under Javier’s, laces his hands behind Javier’s back. Their bodies are pressed together now, and Javier feels like some of Yuzu’s warmth and confidence is making him warmer and more confident as well.

“It will be hard, Habi,” Yuzu says, honest and sweet as usual, “so hard. But it worth. You love ballet so much, you not give up. I know. Love have power.”

Javier feels his heart beat faster, feels another inner knot untie. He runs his forefinger on his boyfriend’s face – forehead, nose, mouth.

“The power of love,” he whispers, his breath blending with Yuzu’s.

They kiss. Slowly, tenderly, only to feel each other. Today is the first time they’ve met in more than a month.

“Now you try of sleeping,” Yuzu says afterwards.

“Yes.” Javier lets him go with a sigh. “Maybe I should sit in my armchair. You know, the best position for my hip is when… let’s say, when my legs and my torso form kind of an obtuse angle. But it will be hard to sleep anyway.”

Yuzu looks at the blue armchair in the far corner of the living room. Javier’s cat, Effie, is curled up onto it, sound asleep.

“No, “ he says, “let’s try other thing, okay?”

“What?”

“You come with me.”

Yuzu takes his hand, and Javier follows him meekly to the bedroom, watches him arrange a couple of pillows against the head of the bed and then lay back, opening up his legs and arms with a soft smile on his lips.

“Come here, Habi.”

“But…” Javier shakes his head slowly. “Nene, no. How can _you_ sleep, this way? You need to sleep too, you spent the whole day in an airplane.”

“I holiday, can sleep tomorrow.” Yuzu opens up his arms even more. “So?”

There’s no way to make him change his mind, of course. Javier would like to roll his eyes, but he grins instead and climbs into the bed, crawling between Yuzu’s legs and lying his back against Yuzu’s chest, his nape on Yuzu’s shoulder.

“Comfortable?” Yuzu asks, brushing Javier’s temple with his lips.

One by one, the knots inside Javier keep untying, leaving him worn out and dazed but serene, finally. Yuzu’s heartbeat fills the silence of the night, melts with Javier’s.

“Very comfortable.”

Javier closes his eyes. He doubts he can sleep like this, but his hip doesn’t hurt so much anymore. And it’s so quiet and cozy, being in Yuzu’s arms. The safest place in the whole world, Javier thinks – and he feels he’s nearly part of Yuzu now, breathing in time with Yuzu, tuning his own heartbeat to Yuzu’s, losing all notion of where he ends and Yuzu begins…

_Nen-nen yo okororiyo suya-suya to oyasuminasai_

Javier looks up.

“Are you singing me a lullaby?”

Yuzu doesn’t answer. He waits a moment, then keeps on singing with his mouth close to Javier’s ear. His voice is soft, astonishingly in tune.

_Nen-nen yo okororiyo yasashi hito ni sodachimasu you ni_

_Kami-sama arigatou, enjeru mo arigatou_

_Nen-nen yo okororiyo mama no mune de oyasuminasai…_

Javier will never know how this lullaby ends, because he falls asleep.


	2. Day One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How was class?”  
“Well, let’s say that they wouldn’t have picked me, if I danced like this the day of my audition. I hope I’ll dance better tomorrow morning. Maybe it’s silly, or useless, but… but I want my last ballet classes to be great ballet classes.”  
“Not give up, okay? Not give up, Habi.”

In the morning, Yuzuru had to work for a couple of hours: telephone calls, e-mails, a videoconference and not a moment to enjoy his holiday, Effie purring in his lap the only sign of well-being and relaxation. Normally Yuzuru is good at setting things apart, putting aside what can wait and focusing on what needs his immediate care; this morning, though, he just wanted to turn off his mobile and computer. He wanted to play with Effie, and then to go out, and then to have lunch with Javi. He couldn’t wait to have lunch with Javi.

“What’s happening to me, Effie?” he asked the cat in Japanese when he finally could switch his computer off.

Effie’s only answer was looking at him with her head tilted a bit to the side.

“In this very moment, I’m putting Habi before work. Should I be worried?”

Effie shook her head, then went back to curl and sleep in his lap.

“I take it as a no,” Yuzuru said, petting her back.

Actually, he wasn’t worried at all. He had been, at the beginning of their relationship: what if love was going to distract him from skating? When he lost the World Championships in Saitama, though, Yuzuru understood: love was going to improve his skating; if he had lost, it wasn’t only because he was injured and popped the quad Salchow: it was because he had stopped evolving. And if he wanted to evolve, he needed to practice better and more, of course, but also to love, and live, and become complete.

So he started re-practicing the quad Lutz; during an ice show, after speaking with Javi on the phone, he was able to jump it perfectly – ‘more textbook than textbook’, someone said.

Yuzuru was evolving again.

Half past twelve, a Thai restaurant in Charlottenburg.

“How was class?”

“Well, let’s say that they wouldn’t have picked me, if I danced like this the day of my audition. I hope I’ll dance better tomorrow morning. Maybe it’s silly, or useless, but… but I want my last ballet classes to be _great_ ballet classes.”

“Not give up, okay? _Not give up_, Habi.”

“I won’t, Yuzu. I won’t.”

If they were him, loads of people would now take photos, but doing the same doesn’t even come to his mind. There’s no problem when someone wants to take a picture of or with him: it’s a quick, simple way to make them happy. But Yuzuru can’t understand why _he_ should take photographs. Why should he put a screen between himself and the world? When the world becomes too much for him to take, he just goes home, or puts his earbuds on and closes his eyes to lose himself into the music. To him, a camera lens looks like an annoying filter and a fragile shield at the same time.

Yuzuru is walking through the concrete slabs of the Holocaust Memorial. Some minutes ago he had stumbled into a bunch of schoolchildren, but he hasn’t seen anyone since. The cars in Eberstraße sound like stones rolling at the edge of his senses, and the more he walks away from the street, the better he can hear the gravel creak under his feet, his clothes rustle to the rhythm of his body’s moves, his breath hiss lightly. He wishes it was winter and his breath could turn into steam in front of his mouth, concealing the view, keeping him company almost like a solid body. From the outside the Memorial looked like a graveyard, but now that he’s inside it, Yuzuru realizes that he’s not walking through tombstones: he’s walking through a ghost town. There are no dead here, he understands while he treads on ascending or descending paths, along tall or small slabs; here are the deserted abodes of who once was alive and suddenly lost the right to live. Here’s a present that has lost its past; here is nostalgia.

When he re-emerges from the Memorial, Yuzuru lets the tears streak his cheeks.

“_This is a temple: you must come in focused and reverent_, that’s what all my teachers have always said about any dance studio I’ve ever walked in.”

“Mhm. When I practice in rink, people can see.”

“Not at the Cricket Club, though.”

“Right. But I want _so much_ to seeing you dance!”

The U-bahn is not a bad place to cut the world off – which is something Yuzuru craves for, after the hours he spent touring Berlin. As soon as he gets on the U2, he checks on his phone how long his route is supposed to be (seventeen minutes), then he puts his earbuds on, closes his eyes, and turns the music on.

Javi didn’t give him many suggestions about how to spend his spare time: he gave him a set of his flat’s keys, a handful of U-bahn tickets, and he told Yuzuru that Berlin is worth a long visit: it’s a weird, unique town. Javi didn’t organize anything for him, didn’t worry about him getting lost or into trouble. He gave more credit to his intelligence than to his inexperience, and Yuzuru feels deeply thankful for that.

Javi with a sport bag thrown on his shoulder, large black track pants, and a pair of leg-warmers floppy on his sneakers. Javi caressing Yuzu’s neck and kissing him softly before getting out, his mouth tasting of toothpaste and coffee and something else – grapes and sun: Javi. Yuzuru feels a clot of warmth melt inside his heart and radiate throughout his body, and he breathes deeply to help that warmth go all the way up to his brain, mix with the music. Javi. Javi who made him discover Toronto, after seven years of living and training there, and Niagara Falls. Javi who helped him not be swallowed up by the black hole calling him after Saitama. Javi who will dance for the last time in two days and is terrified: he’s not familiar with that black hole as much as Yuzuru is.

He turns the music off, opens up his eyes. He checks his phone: seventeen minutes have passed. He stands up, walks to the doors. When the train comes to a stop, it’s the right station. Yuzuru gets off, joins the stream of people climbing the stairs and heads for the Deutsche Oper.

“Anyway, you can’t come to classes, but I managed to get you a pass to come to the rehearsals of _Lust_ in the late afternoon.”

“Really?”

“Really. Just don’t come too early, please. Better if you show up when there’s only Polina, Alejandro and me. Okay?”

“Okay. What I must do, to get in temple? Learn prayer? Dress like monk?”

“Put on a tunic and come barefooted: we disciples are supposed to offer young, beautiful men as a sacrifice to our god the Ballet.”

“_Baka_.”

“Just like you, nene.”

Yuzuru looks down from the balcony running around the dance studio, careful not to make any sound. He doesn’t want Javi to see him, not yet: Javi is too unsure not to be affected by someone else’s look on him, and Yuzuru wants to see him moving and talking and behaving freely, at least for a few minutes.

Javi wears a worn, grey sweatshirt on white calf-length leggings and white ballet shoes – very old, Yuzuru reckons: a hole here, a piece of tape there. Javi doesn’t limp when he walks, but he looks a bit stiff and wary. His hip must hurt so much, after this morning class and the rehearsals for the gala.

“It’s okay, more than okay,” Javi is saying in English to a ballerina – Polina Semionova, obviously – and her partner – Alejandro Virelles, if Yuzuru’s memory isn’t wrong (usually it isn’t: it’s frightfully precise). “Just… I’d rather change the inclination of your head here, in the last lift… both of your heads… look.”

Javi shows what he means: first he plays the man part with Polina, then the woman part with Alejandro, and Yuzuru feels a lump start growing in his throat. Javi is so beautiful, so _right_ when he’s dancing, it’s so unfair that he has to stop. The two dancers are now rehearsing again the lift together, and it’s elegant like before but much warmer. Just a detail has changed, the heads’ inclination, but details are there to achieve perfection, and Javi knows it all too well.

“Yes, yes, much better.” Javi nods, then claps his hands. “So, I think we can…”

“I think we can have a short break,” Polina interrupts him with a smirk. “Since there’s an angel watching over us.”

Javi lifts his eyes, meets Yuzuru’s. They smile to each other. Slowly. Blindingly.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Yuzuru.”

“Is nice for me too.”

Polina is beautiful. When she smiles it’s like she is lit by an inner, golden light, and she has a very delicate, respectful way of taking up space, of sharing it with her colleagues – just like Javi.

“And he is Alejandro,” Javi says.

Yuzuru shakes hands with a tall, slightly amber-skinned young man.

“I’m so happy to meet you!” Alejandro says. “I saw you live, years ago. In Barcelona. You were awesome.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Have you ever thought about being a ballet dancer? You’re so graceful…”

It’s quite curious, being paid a compliment not by a skater or a simple fan, but by a _danceur_. Besides, Alejandro is one of Javi’s colleagues, he’s talking about Yuzuru’s ballet skills in front of Javi, and it’s like being closer than ever to Javi. A sudden rush of joy submerges Yuzuru.

“No, never,” he finally answers. “But thank you very much.”

“Thank _you_,” Alejandro says. “Watching you skate was unforgettable.”

Yuzuru feels Javi’s gaze on him, feels the wave of Javi’s pride and love crushing against him, swallowing him, and feels Javi’s arm around his waist. For a second Yuzuru stiffens, then he remembers they’re in Berlin, with two dancers: nobody gives a damn about his sexual tendencies. He can relax.

“So, shall we go on?” Javi says, the softness of his voice muffled under the professional tone. “Yuzu, you can sit on that bench… the one against the mirror.”

“Okay.”

Javi squeezes his waist before stepping away, and Yuzuru goes and sits on the bench.

“Alright, guys, we are running out of time,” Javi says, taking a quick look at the clock on the wall. “So I would like to see it all one last time. _All_, okay? No breaks. Just like you were on stage. And please, keep in mind that it’s called _Lust_. So yes, it’s totally okay if you show love, but I don’t want to see too much… affection. Tenderness. Right? I want more passion. I need you both to… to have shivers running down your spines in anticipation.” For a second, Javi looks at Yuzuru. And, for a second, Yuzuru has the feeling that Javi is going to ask him to help show how passion looks like. Oh Javi, no, don’t ask me. Oh yes, please, ask me. Then Javi’s gaze leaves him and goes back to the dancers. “I need you both to ache for sex,” Javi says. “I want foreplays, not cuddles. Got it?”

Polina and Alejandro nod, and now it’s Yuzuru’s turn to feel proud: two famous dancers are listening intently to Javi and going to do what Javi, his Javi, tells them to do.

His Javi.

Then, after correcting what Yuzuru assumes is the starting position, Javi walks to the iPad and turns the music on.

A delicate piano.

Tori Amos’ _Lust_.

The song Javi and he listened to eight months ago, when everything started.

The two dancers begin to move, and Yuzuru feels like he’s living in two different moments in time: he’s here _now_, in a dance studio in Berlin, and he’s there _then_, in a hotel room in Moscow. The same song, Alejandro’s feet carrying Polina’s and Javi’s feet carrying Yuzuru’s, Polina’s nose in the crook of Alejandro’s neck and Yuzuru’s nose in the crook of Javi’s neck – Javi’s scent so intoxicating and all-encompassing that Yuzure could taste it in his mouth.

_Hey you, a gender nectar_

Polina and Alejandro keep on dancing and having sex, in a way, just like Yuzuru and Javi danced and had sex in Moscow – but it wasn’t only sex: it was something Yuzuru knew he wouldn’t be able to do without anymore. Javi, his Javi… his Javi who was able to take their love and turned it into art, into something that will live beyond them, that will make their first night together an eternal moment, precious to everybody witnessing it. Nothing like that has ever happened to Yuzuru. Then Polina and Alejandro, take their final pose, and Yuzuru clings to the bench to stop his hands from trembling.

Javi turns the iPad off.

“Perfect,” he says. “That was just perfect.” He looks moved and happy. “Thank you.”

Polina smiles, while Alejandro pats Javier’s shoulder. “Thank _you_, Javi,” he says. “It’s such a honor, to dance this wonderful choreo.”

Javi shines with gratitude, and Yuzuru feels he’s shining in return. He knows that Javi and Alejandro are not friends, only colleagues, and what such a compliment means to his boyfriend. But it’s just a moment, then Yuzuru’s mirrored gratitude drowns in the storm he has inside after watching _Lust_, while he’s still in that Muscovite hotel room, while Javi is by his side and at the same time inside of him. And when Polina and Alejandro finally pick their bags up and leave the dance studio, he can’t help grabbing Javi by his nape and kissing him.

Javi squeals in surprise when he finds himself squashed against the big wall mirror, but he welcomes immediately Yuzuru’s kiss, wraps his arms around Yuzuru’s waist. And Yuzuru kisses him, keeps on kissing him, kisses him away – the only way he knows to put past and present together, to find the balance that watching _Lust_ has taken from him. Only when he finds his axis again he pulls away.

“Hey,” Javi smiles, “you really missed me today, didn’t you?” 

Yuzuru runs his lips on Javi’s half-naked shoulder. “I not see you for hours and then I see _Lust_,” he says. He bites Javi’s neck, feels Javi’s goosebumps. “We alone, here?”

Javi sighs. “Yes, as long as the cleaning staff doesn’t come in,” he says. “But Yuzu, I…”

“You not can, I know.” Yuzuru slips his fingers under Javi’s sweatshirt, caressing his hot skin. “I just… need feel you.” He runs his forefinger in the groove of Javi’s back. “Only feel you, Habi.”

Javi nibbles at Yuzuru’s lobe. “The cleaning people could get in any moment,” he says, “but they won’t, if they hear some music.” He smiles mischievously and goes to turn the iPad back on.

Javi wanted to take the U-Bahn as usual, but Yuzuru has seen how he walks, and how wrecked he is, so he has called a taxi.

“So, where have you been today? What have you seen?” Javi asks while the taxi proceeds as slowly as a snail in the seven p.m. traffic.

“Oh, typical tourist thing, I guess,” Yuzuru says, but he doesn’t pay much attention to their conversation. Through their entwined fingers, physical pain leaks in his body from Javi’s, and concern is like a glass bell separating him from the rest of the world. “I start from Hackosche… Hackeses… I mean, the yards behind Alexanderplatz, and I get to Potsdamer Platz.”

“Walking down Unter den Linden, from Alexanderplatz to the Brandenburg Door…”

“…and the Reichstag. Yes.”

“And what do you think about Berlin?”

Yuzuru frees his hand to stroke rhythmically Javi’s thigh, even if he’d like to hug him, massage him, take all of his pain. Yuzuru is more used to physical pain than his boyfriend: of course Javi knows it well enough, he’s danced since he was eight; but he didn’t feel like choking when he was three, his lungs and chest burning because of asthma.

“Berlin is… heavy,” he finally answers.

“Heavy?”

Yuzuru sighs.

“So much _past_ in the air,” he says, “so much shame. Anger. But pride, too. Air is… thick. Like weight on shoulders. Yes?”

“Yes,” Javi agrees. “But I think it’s what makes it so special.”

“I like… _would_ like to know how was with Wall.”

“Even heavier, maybe.”

Yuzuru doesn’t speak. The Wall fell five years before he was even born. It doesn’t happen to him very often, but for a moment he feels incredibly young. Young and naïve.

The taxi stops in front of the building where Javi lives.

Yuzuru pays the driver and gets out hastily, then he takes Javi’s sport bag and throws it on his shoulder. Javi doesn’t protest, which speaks volumes about how much his hip is hurting. They slowly start walking to the building’s main door.

“That’s one thing I _don’t_ like about Berlin,” Javi says once they’re in the hall, looking at the stairs in front of them. “There are so many buildings without an elevator.”

“Hip hurt?”

Javi shrugs, gives Yuzuru a bitter half-smile. “So much that my whole leg feels like it was made from wood.” His half-smile turns into a disheartened half-laugh. “And I live on the top floor, of course.”

“You not think top floor,” Yuzuru says. “You think _next_ floor. Every time next floor, only next floor. Come on, I help.”

He passes his free arm under Javi’s armpits and they start their slow, difficult ascent to the fifth floor.

“How are you?” Yuzuru asks while they are resting on the second floor.

“Let’s say I’m starting to feel very, very, _very_ smitten with elevators. What about you? Am I not too heavy?”

“Berlin is heavy, not Habi.” They start climbing the stairs again. “If I have good ankle, I take _you_ on shoulder, not bag.”

“Well, I’m flattered, but don’t push yourself too hard.”

Yuzuru glares at him. “I know I not look strong, but I _am_ strong.”

“Sorry nene, that’s not what I meant.” Javi apologetically brushes his lips on Yuzuru’s temple. “We both need not to push ourselves too hard, though, even in our ‘normal’ life. We are young, sure, but…”

“…but is like we old.” They stop to catch their breath between the third and fourth floor. “When they make promo for Saitama Championships, there is question: ‘Who prevails?’ And then you see all top skaters, and every skater is link to word.” They restart climbing. “I link to _experience_.”

“They meant you’re a veteran.”

“_Veteran_ mean _old_.”

“True. And you are twenty-four.”

“And you must retire at twenty-eight. Yes.”

“How sad that there’s just one word for when old people stop working and for when athletes stop competing. _Retirement_… hey! Now that I think about it, also in _Blade Runner_ they said ‘retirement’, when they killed a replicant.”

“I always think that English is very cruel language.”

They are on the fifth floor, finally. Javi looks for the key in his sport bag, opens the door. As soon as they’re in, he collapses in an armchair, Effie immediately jumping in his lap.

“Aaaaah, _Dios_,” he exhales, so exhausted he doesn’t even stroke his cat. “Oh my God.”

Yuzuru closes the door, puts down Javi’s bag and fetches the pouffe, puts it under Javi’s legs.

“Hey,” Javi smiles when Yuzuru starts unlacing his sneakers, “I’m just tired, there’s no…”

“Is not because you tired.” Yuzuru knows he has an ironic smirk on his lips, and he knows Javi loves it. “Is because you old.”

“Oh, right, I nearly forgot.” Javi leans back with a smile, finally starting to rub Effie’s soft fur, then he looks serious again. “Give me just ten minutes, then I’ll take a shower and I’ll be as fresh as a daisy.”

Yuzuru crouches by him and reaches for his cheek. Fatigue makes Javi’s features softer, fills his eyes with honey. He’s so beautiful.

“There’s no… what you say? Hully?”

Javi takes his hand and kisses his wrist.

“Hurry,” he says before sighing. “Okay, but I want to take you to a fine restaurant, and…”

“Habi,” Yuzuru interrupts him, taking Javi’s hand between both of his. “You tired. Your hip hurt. We _not_ go out tonight.” He presses two fingers on Javi’s lips before he can protest. “Now you shower and relax, and I go buy food. Then we eat and go bed soon.”

Javi caresses Yuzuru’s wrist with his thumb. He smiles slowly, tiredly, wistfully – a bit. “I’m very old, then.”

“Very _very_ old.”

“I’m so sorry, Yuzu. I’d love to show you my district, and some places not made only for tourists here in Berlin, and many other things.”

“Next time.”

Yuzuru rests his head on Javi’s shoulder, let Javi’s smell penetrate his nostrils and his whole being. It’s unbelievable – almost miraculous, actually – what happened and is still happening to him since Javier Fernández came into his life. A life based on skating since Yuzuru can remember: he firmly believes there was just one day when skating wasn’t his absolute priority, the day of the great earthquake and tsunami. Excluding that day, though, there wasn’t a single second, move, or thought that doesn’t have skating as its final goal. From eating to sleeping, from learning to even having sex, Yuzuru has been invariably focused on and shaped by only one important thing: skating. His family too is important to him, of course, but he feels so guilty about them: he needs his parents and sister to be well, but he also needs them to sacrifice themselves for him and his career.

With Javi it’s different, though. He’s as crucial to Yuzuru’s happiness as skating is. If Javi is not there, or if Javi is sad, ill, concerned, Yuzuru feels like when he can’t skate for a while: incomplete. By now there’s not a single second, move, or thought that doesn’t haveJavi as its final goal – or, better, Javi and Yuzu: together. Javi and Yuzu _happy_ together, because there’s no way anymore for him to be happy if they’re _not_ together. It’s something so monumental that Yuzuru is nearly scared, sometimes. But it is what it is: scaring, unavoidable, and God, so beautiful

“Next time,” he repeats softly, peppering Javi’s jaw with light brief kisses, feeling Javi’s hand stroking his waist. “In this moment, only thing I want seeing is you.”

Yuzuru went out and bought something to eat at an Asian take-away, then they settled in the common terrace, just one flight of stairs up from Javi’s flat: sometimes it’s not so bad, living on the top floor. Stretched in their twin deck chairs, a bottle of _Apfelsaft_ and two candles at their feet, they eat while making some lazy small talk and joking a lot; now they are looking at the night sky, holding hands. The wind carries clouds, concealing the stars, then it carries them away, unveiling the pulsing brightness above.

“Berlin is dark,” Yuzuru says. “I realize before, when going to take-away. Not much lamps in street. Not much light from lamps.”

“It’s true.”

“Why? Big towns have much light.”

“I don’t know. Maybe because the stars are more visible, this way.” Javi slips his hand between the back of the deck chair and Yuzuru’s nape. “Maybe because it’s the perfect atmosphere for a kiss.”

They lean in, and their lips meet in a sweet, long kiss. When they pull apart and lean back, they sigh contently at the same time, which causes them to laugh. The terrace seems to float above the Earth and its worries, in a soft bubble of peace.

“I not sure if I like stars,” Yuzuru says, surprised of himself: he has never shared this thought with anyone. Who would ever trust someone who doesn’t adequately appreciate the stars? And yet, Javi can understand. He doesn’t speak, just waits for Yuzuru to go on with his reasoning. “I mean, of course I like stars, they beautiful, but… when I look stars, I always think that… they far far far away. Light must travel for _centuries_ before we can see stars. And… maybe, maybe the stars we see are very old, maybe they not bright, maybe they… dead. They not there, no more. And when I think this, I… sometimes, I start to thinking too much, yes? I fool, I know.”

“The point is exactly that you are the opposite of a fool, I’d say,” Javi objects, his voice sure and his eyes so full of love and of something else, something close to reverence, that Yuzuru’s heart shudders. “You’re right. But it also means that many stars are just born, and many others are young and brighter than what meets our eyes.”

“Is true,” Yuzuru says. Actually, he’s always seen a connection between the stars and the past, never between the stars and the future. To him, the future has always been a limited notion, shaped into a kind of eternal spiral – practicing, competing in a new season, taking part in some summer shows: in short: skating, skating, skating. But Javi is different, he has so much more than ballet inside, so much sun in his soul. Yuzuru hides his face in the crook of his boyfriend’s neck. “And one new star is you.”

Javi wraps an arm around his shoulders, so that Yuzuru can lie more comfortable against him.

“I’d love to,” Javi sighs, “but I’m afraid the only star between us is…”

“You will be fantastic choreographer,” Yuzuru interrupts him. “You so sad because you not will dance anymore, I know. But Saturday is your first time on stage like choreographer. First time you not just _do_, but you _create_.” Yuzuru brushes his knuckles along Javi’s jaw, feels the tension inside him. “_Lust_, _Otoñal_, and all choreography you create in future, they be forever, and you shine forever.”

“Like a star?” Javi’s voice is quite hoarse.

“The most bright star.”

Javi lifts Yuzuru’s chin with two fingers, looks at him with eyes that seem to move and change and glow in the wind of his emotions.

“After your words, a simple ‘I love you’ would sound a bit trivial, wouldn’t it?” he says.

“Maybe, or maybe not,” says Yuzuru with a smile. “You try.”

Javi smiles in return.

“I love you, Yuzu.”

“I love you, Habi.”

Their bubble of peace keeps travelling through the starry night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I am a bit late with this chapter... anyway, I hope you enjoyed it :))  
As usual, a big, heartful THANK YOU to my adorable beta, LadyLightning!  
Next time: dress rehearsal...


	3. Day Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The fact is… I’m so scared, Yuzu,” he finally admits while they’re walking back, leaving the Ferris wheel behind. “I’m not talking about my debut as a choreographer. Okay, sure, I’m scared about that too: what if people and critics don’t like Lust? But… what’s really terrifying me is that I have to dance. I fought so much to be the main dancer in this pas de deux, and now I’d pay not to dance it.”

Javier zips his sport bag shut. He has taken everything he needs, including loads of painkillers. Will they be enough to get through this morning class and the dress rehearsal in the afternoon? He’s not sure. There’s a limit to the medications his body can tolerate, while his hip seems to surpass a new limit of pain on a daily basis.

Well, he will wait and see; all in all, there’s nothing else he can do. Except… Javier tiptoes to the bedroom. Yuzu is sleeping. Yesterday he woke up to kiss Javier good day, but now he’s dead to the world. He must be exhausted, after spending two nights with Javier leaning and sleeping against his chest and between his legs. Javier goes down on his knees beside the bed, so that his face is at the same level with Yuzu’s. Actually he can’t see much of Yuzu’s face, hidden in the pillow: one closed eye, one cheekbone, the bush of his hair. At the dawn of day, before showering, Yuzu’s smell is stronger, purer, and Javier craves to press his nose into Yuzu’s neck, but he doesn’t want to wake him up. He could stay hours and hours like this, in the velvety quietness of this room, by his sleeping boyfriend, looking at the shadows that the chestnut tree’s leaves are casting on the walls and that give a greenish nuance to the strange, different air always surrounding Yuzu like a balloon. A balloon that keeps Yuzu out of reach for anyone, but that five months ago opened up its gates for Javier. He looks at one of Yuzu’s feet sneaking out of the sheets, at his delicate ankle, at the tender hair scattered across his calf. As soon as this painful madness is over, he thinks, I will caress you, and kiss you, and make love to you as much and as beautifully as you deserve, my love. My love. Then he stands up, and the pain is like a knife stabbing his hip and his heart, too.

Javier walks to the door, stops on the threshold to look at Yuzu one last time. As soon as this madness is over, he thinks once again, I will give you happiness, not worries. Then, deeply aware that he probably has just experienced the only good moment of his day, he picks up his sport bag and leaves.

At the end of the day, it only lasts five minutes. To be precise, excluding Iana’s solo, the minutes are three and a half. They’re endless, though. They are dragging on incredibly slow, but at the same time they’re running too fast, ticking to a rhythm too maddening for Javi’s hurtful body to keep up, and he’s always late – just a fraction of a second, but he’s unavoidably late, late enough to feel and look like a sloth, compared to Iana. And when he nearly drops her on the floor, their teacher asks the music to be turned off. It’s the first time it happens, since the dress rehearsal has begun.

“Javier, what’s in your head today?” the teacher says. What’s in your _head_: physical issues are so very usual for dancers that nobody even bothers to consider them; if you are not at home with a plastered leg, if you are here, the only reason why you _don’t_ dance, or dance so badly, must be mental.

“I’m sorry,” Javier mutters. He perfectly knows that his teacher’s question was utterly rhetorical.

“You’re trying too hard, we all can see your fatigue,” his teacher insists. “Also, it looks like you’re listening to another music. Did you put on some earphones with a slower track, or something?”

Javier feels everyone’s eyes on his burning skin: Iana, his partner; Sarah and Federico, their reserves; light and sound technicians… anybody who’s in this theatre in this moment. How many people are thinking that this Spanish guy, this mediocre dancer, isn’t and will never be able to dance this _pas de deux_? How many people are convinced he just stole a part that only a real _étoile_ could dance?

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

His teacher watches him silently, for so many seconds that an awkward atmosphere starts swelling around them all. Javier can’t lift his eyes from where they are since the music went off – on the floor.

“From the beginning,” his teacher finally says, and Iana and Javier take their starting position.

From the beginning, Javier thinks. He swallows, takes a deep breath. From the beginning. At the end of the day, it only lasts five minutes.

Yuzu is waiting for him outside the theatre, hands deep in the pockets of his jeans, earphones loose on his shoulders and eyes bright with the joy of seeing him. A joy fading away as soon as Javier gets closer, immediately turning into concern.

“Habi?”

Javier takes him in his arms, burrows his face in the crook of Yuzu’s neck. It doesn’t give him all the relief he was hoping for.

“Habi…”

“Let’s go, please?”

“Sure.”

Yuzu leads him to the taxi that is waiting for them, and he knows better than to help Javier get in. They drive silently for a while, hands close but not entwined.

“So bad?” Yuzu asks finally.

Javier wishes he could not answer; wishes Yuzu would not ask at all. But Yuzu is used to immediately face any problem standing in his way: it’s his nature, being brave and incapable of self-indulgence. And right now Javier would like to be cowardly and _very_ self-indulgent, at least for a few moments. He can’t help answering, though.

“When the rehearsal was over, our teacher told me to let him know in time if Federico has to dance,” he says. “Federico is my reserve.”

Yuzu doesn’t speak or touch him, but Javier feels him stiffen at his side. If he was less angry with himself and less full of dread, he would appreciate how much Yuzu seems to respect his outburst and his need of some selfish whining; anger and dread have occupied every inch of his being, though, they seep out of his skin like sweat, acid and stinky. Javier tries and laughs, but it’s not a laughter what gets out of his mouth. It’s something bitter and annoyed. Ugly.

“Anyway, I shouldn’t worry so much, should I?” he says. “_Bad rehearsal, good show_. That’s what they always say, right?” Once again that ugly, fake laughter. “Bullshit.”

“Bullshit, yes,” Yuzuru whispers after a few seconds, as if he didn’t want to disturb Javier’s self-pity. “But _bad rehearsal, bad show_ is bullshit too.”

“Uh, sure.”

“In show there is things you not have in rehearsal,” Yuzu goes on stubbornly. “Audience and adrenaline. Okay, maybe they not enough for good show. But they change thing. Adrenaline take away pain. Audience… audience give and take. _You_ give and take. Is exchange, it can help. It _will_ help, Habi. You are most generous person I know, audience will love you. Audience will give you stron… strength.”

Javier whirls his head and looks at Yuzu. Somewhere deep inside he knows his boyfriend is right; too deep, though, to emerge now and fight all the bad feelings and thoughts running in his blood.

“Look, Yuzu, I’m so thankful for your support, really, but not everyone is like you, okay?” he says, a sarcastic note in the bitterness of his voice.

Javier feels the space between them stretch like a rubber band.

“What you mean, like me?” Yuzu asks. Also his tone is a rubber band, ready to snap.

Javier vaguely waves his hand. “You… you crash against another skater during the warm-up and skate anyway. You destroy your ankle before the Olympic Games and win anyway,” he answers. “That’s what I mean.”

“Hab…”

“You are Yuzuru Hanyu,” Javier adds on, “I’m Javier Fernández. You’re the greatest skater of all time, I’m a mediocre ballet dancer. I don’t have either your talent, or your temper. Nobody has, by the way. Nobody has the talent and temper of Yuzuru Hanyu, and please don’t pretend that it’s not true, don’t pretend that you don’t know it. You are…”

“…too much?” Yuzu says for him.

Javier doesn’t reply.

“Okay,” Yuzu whispers. Then louder, to the driver: “Can you stop here, please?”

Javier feels a cold stone suddenly weigh in his stomach.

“Yuzu, what…”

“You are mad and you want stay mad, right now,” Yuzu says. There’s no anger in his voice, no offense; only a quiet, wistful awareness. “So I leave you alone.”

The taxi pulls over. Yuzu opens the door. When he’s out, he ducks toward Javier, giving him a smile as quiet and wistful as his voice.

“See you later,” he says.

Then he’s closing the door, he’s going, he’s gone.

Yuzuru wanders through the streets, absentmindedly choosing the less crowded ones.

_You are Yuzuru Hanyu_.

When he was about to tour Berlin alone for the first time, Javier pleaded with him to pay attention to bicycles. The bike lanes are often on sideways, for a stranger it’s all too easy to stomp on one of them, and it’s very dangerous: a _Berliner_ riding a bike on its legitimate lane, since he’s right and you’re wrong, could also decide it is worth hurting you.

Yuzu feels tempted to walk right on the bike lane, to see if the danger is real; at least it would be a different crash from all the thoughts crashing in his mind.

_You are…_

_…too much?_

Is this the reason why I left?, he wonders. Be honest, Yuzuru: were you really, really willing to give Javi some room to breathe? Or were you hurt by what he told you?

Both, he answers to himself. Yuzuru doesn’t know a great deal about boy or girlfriends, but he does know a couple of things about living together with someone: him and his mother have gone through a lot – enough for him to understand when somebody needs to be alone. He also knows that Javi has an ambivalent relationship with him being ‘too much’: usually Javi loves it, but he can’t stand it when feeling too insecure. He can get a bit aggressive, somehow. And Yuzuru is as vulnerable as any other human being. Especially vulnerable when it comes to the opinion of the man he loves.

_You are mad and you want stay mad, right now_.

Yuzuru crosses the street and finds himself in front of a construction site where big, pink pipes rise from the ground and run along the street. What’s that?? How he wishes Javi was there, with him, and could explain. But Yuzuru left him alone. Just when Javi is mad, of course, but also – most of all – terribly scared.

_So I leave you alone_.

“_Baka_,” Yuzuru says aloud to himself, then pulls his phone out of his pocket.

And his phone starts immediately ringing.

When Yuzu got out of the taxi Javier had tried to chase him, but as soon as he got out as well, his left leg gave up. When the pain subsided, allowing him to come back to his senses and to find his voice again, Yuzu had disappeared. Javier got back in the taxi, gasping even though he hadn’t taken a single step.

“Sir?” the driver calls out after some time – how long? Javier will never know.

“Yes, sorry,” he answers. “Please, take me…” Where? At home, waiting for Yuzu to come back? Somewhere else? What kind of destination can he possibly have, without Yuzu? “Just drive,” he finally says.

_You are Yuzuru Hanyu_.

That’s what he told Yuzu.

_You are…_

_…too much?_

It’s true: Yuzuru Hanyu _is_ the greatest skater of all time, and he _is_ too much. Javier slowly shakes his head, while out of the window people who are not Yuzu appear and disappear from his sight. It’s true, he repeats to himself; so what? How did it come to my mind to talk as if it was a fault, a flaw, or a guilt?

_You are mad and you want stay mad, right now_.

Of course Javier is mad, but not at Yuzu. And he’s so proud that Yuzu is the greatest skater of all time, and he loves him being ‘too much’. Then why did Javier act as if he was mad at him? Why did he throw at Yuzu all his rage and fear?

_So I leave you alone_.

Javier leans against the headrest. He doesn’t want to be alone. He wants to be with Yuzu.

“You idiot,” he says aloud to himself, then pulls his phone out of his pocket.

Just one ring, then his call is picked up.

“Habi! I going to call you.”

“Nene, forgive me. Please. I’m so sorry, I’m so totally sorry. And I’m an idiot.”

“No, you scared. _I’m_ idiot.”

“Do you want to argue?”

“About who more idiot? Well, that funny.”

“Let’s try, then. Where are you?”

“I don’t know. Wait, street is call… Goethestraße.”

“It’s close, I’ll be there in a minute. Don’t move, and we can argue as much as you want.”

“Okay, but before you must explain thing.”

“What?”

“Why there is big pipes in air? _Pink_ pipes?”

Explaining what those big pink pipes are – they use them in every construction site to carry groundwater to the rivers – had efficiently made them forget about arguing, and now Javier and Yuzu are walking in the Spreepark, between weeds, crumbling kiosks and rusty attractions. His hip hurts like hell and it should probably rest, but Javier desperately needs some air.

“I have a feeling that the pink pipes will be your favorite thing in Berlin,” he says, finally with a smile.

Yuzu smiles back, tilting his head slightly.

“Pipes are third place. Second place is here.” Yuzu points at the knocked down statue of a dinosaur. “Why like that?” he asks.

“I don’t know, not really.” Javi takes a look around him, sighing. “A long story of debts, thefts… something like that. But now the park’s owner is the town of Berlin, I think.”

“I don’t know why they leave park like so, but is so… alive. And alone. And sad because alive and alone. Is… is _screaming_, here.”

Javier watches emotions pour down on Yuzu’s face like rain. Sometimes he thinks that Yuzu _has_ to be intelligent and rational as he is: Yuzu is so sensitive, and his senses are so sharp – it’s like he missed a layer of skin, too much exposed to any input the world gives him – that he needs some kind of shield.

“It is,” Javier agrees, and puts his arm around Yuzu’s waist, to help him keep his balance. “So,” he then says, with a tentative lighter tone, “third place, the pink pipes. Second place, the Spreepark. What about first place?”

Yuzu smiles. The rain of emotions has stopped falling.

“First place is Spanish man talk German,” he says.

Javier stops, a bright grin spreading all over his face. “You’re too kind.”

“I’m just serious.”

Javier starts walking again; he shakes his head.

“I have a terrible accent, when I speak German.” He chuckles while they step on the wooden gangways leading to the Ferris wheel. “My friends here always laugh so hard.”

“Only because they never hear to me speak German.”

“Oh, really? So you speak German and have an accent?”

“I will have accent, when you learn me… no, when you _teach_ me German.”

“Mhm… okay. Which words do you want to learn?”

“Ice skating.”

Javier chuckles again. “Yeah, sure. _Eiskunstlauf_.”

“_Icecoost_-something.”

“_Lauf_.”

“_Lauf_. Frustration.”

“Obviously. _Frustration_.”

“_Fushtazzion_.”

“More or less.”

“Love?”

Javier stops again, turns to look at Yuzu. Maybe I’m not the total idiot I feel like I am, he thinks, if I somehow deserve to be loved by this handsome, brilliant, extraordinary boy.

“_Liebe_,” he answers.

“_Leebe_,” Yuzu echoes him. “Easy.”

“’I love you’ is not so easy, though. _Ich liebe dich_.”

Yuzu takes Javier’s hand to his cheek.

“_Ish leebe dish_,” he repeats.

“Well done.”

“Is not difficult, if I say to you.”

Javi clearly feels his heart jump up in his throat and dive down in his stomach.

“Pay attention not to fall, cause I’m going to kiss you very very hard.”

Yuzu starts to lean in.

“Then I surrender,” he whispers.

They kiss, and for a few magical moments everything else doesn’t exist – there’s no pain, no dread. But it doesn’t last long, and when they pull apart and start walking again, that magic is just a wake able to make lighter, but not to fight, Javier’s bad thoughts.

“The fact is… I’m so scared, Yuzu,” he finally admits while they’re walking back, leaving the Ferris wheel behind. “I’m not talking about my debut as a choreographer. Okay, sure, I’m scared about that too: what if people and critics don’t like _Lust_? But… what’s really _terrifying_ me is that I have to dance. I fought so much to be the main dancer in this _pas de deux_, and now I’d pay not to dance it.”

“Not say that.”

“Why?”

“Because not true.” Yuzu squeezes quickly Javier’s hand. “You love _In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated_. And love dance it.”

“What if I dance it as horribly as I did at the dress rehearsal? My hip can’t take it anymore, nene, it hurts so much that…”

“Use it.”

“What?”

“Pain.”

“How could I ever _use it_?”

There’s a pond in front of them, and Yuzu sits down on its shore. Javier sits down by his side, elbows in the wild grass and knees bent. It’s beautiful to lie here, wrapped in the gentle air preluding a fresh night, with the Ferris wheel squeaking and squealing like a living creature.

“You not always need to use it,” Yuzu says. “In rink… and on stage, well, you have adrenaline, and when adrenaline running, pain stop.”

Javier tries to visualize himself in twenty-four hours, when he will have to manage both his debut as a choreographer and his goodbye as a dancer. He fails, the vision too huge for his tiny, scared brain to contain it.

“What if adrenaline is not enough?” he asks Yuzu.

“That happen to me at last Olympics. I have adrenaline, and took painkillers… and I also very happy to be there. But is not enough. Ankle always ache, always so much, so so so much.”

“And…?”

“And, I was worry and sad. But most, I was _angry_. So angry. I wait Olympics all my life, you know?, and months before I have worst injury ever. My body had full of rage. Like you before, when out of theatre.”

Javier feels his cheeks blush.

“And I threw all my rage against you,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t ha…”

“Not care, Habi. Really.” Yuzu sits on his knees, puts the palms of his hands on the grass and leans toward Javier. “Was important for you to throw out rage. You feel better now, yes? Because you have _use_ rage. Anger, rage, fear… is _energy_, Habi. When I understand this, in PyeongChang, I stop to try killing my rage. I hide rage, yes, but I… save it. Inside. And when it’s short program, all energy inside… all _rage_ inside… become strength. I was strong enough to skate with pain. And I feel calm. Yes, calm and angry at same. Seems impossible, but is not, it… oh, I not can explain well.” Yuzuru sits down on the grass again, looking at the pond.

Crawling on his ass, Javier moves closer, lies down with his head in Yuzu’s lap.

“Your explanation was perfect,” he says softly, caressing Yuzu’s thigh. “Thank you.”

Yuzu leans down and brushes his lips on the shell of Javier’s ear. “Thank you,” he echoes.

“For what?”

Yuzu sighs. “For so many thing I not know how to tell.”

Javier would like to ask which things, but decides against it: Yuzu has opened up his heart and his mind so much in these last days, and Javier doesn’t want him to feel too much vulnerable.

“What about going to a fancy restaurant, finally?” he says instead.

Yuzu lifts an eyebrow.

“You not tired?”

“Exhausted. But I feel like having some fun. Some distraction. Then I will go bed very early, I promise.”

“Okay.”

“Fantastic. So, I’m calling a tax…”

“Wait a moment, yes?” Yuzu pecks his lips tenderly, then straightens up. “I like… _would_ like… to enjoy this a bit more long.”

A solitary pond, the cool Berlin summer on their skins, their entwined hands, the sleeping statue of a dinosaur. And an awfully hard day ahead that they will nevertheless face together. _This_.

“Sure,” Javier sighs. Silently asking time to stand still, only for a few more minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, thanx to my wonderful beta, LadyLightning, and to you all for reading <3  
Next time: show time!


	4. Day Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Those steps, those jumps, those pirouettes have been his very last ones on a stage. He’s twenty-eight, ballet is his life, and in his life he will never dance ballet again. Never.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, here's a new chapter: show time!  
For the ones who didn't read my previous fic, "I Am the Storm": I made Javi's sister, Laura, marry a Finnish man called Pietari and move to Finland :)))  
Thanx soooooooooooo much to my lovely beta, LadyLightning, to the wonderful MsDaring for translating some sentences from English to Spanish, and to all of you!

“Okay,” Javi says before tucking his phone back into his pocket, “they just got off the U-bahn. They’ll be here in a couple of minutes.”

“Good,” Yuzuru exhales.

In a couple of minutes he will meet Javi’s parents and sister, just landed in Berlin for tonight’s gala.

“Hey!” Javi tilts his head and stares into Yuzuru’s eyes. “You’re nervous, aren’t you?”

“A bit,” Yuzuru confesses.

It’s the first time in his whole life that he has experienced something like this. Before Javi, Yuzu had his only so-called ‘serious relationship’ when he was sixteen. Suki was a schoolmate, though: he knew her family since long before they got together, and her parents were just kind of a generically intimidating, grown-up presence. Moreover, when you’re sixteen you hardly think about the distant future; at that time, all the future he could imagine was moving to Toronto, if Brian Orser agreed to be his coach.

Now… Javi and him are adults, now. The future fits into their mental horizon and they can fight their parents, if necessary; and yet, they have to consider so many things, so many variables that their reality and plans are not that easy. Then, although Yuzuru is self-confident enough to accept that there are, and there will always be, people who don’t like him, Enriqueta and Antonio are _Javi’s_ parents, and Laura is _Javi’s_ sister: Javi would feel very bad if his family didn’t like his boyfriend, and the Fernándezs’ appreciation for him isn’t anything that Yuzuru’s steely determination can affect.

Therefore he feels anxious, of course; and a bit lost.

“Please don’t.” Javi takes his hands, gives him the serene smile of someone very convinced of what they’re about to say. “They will love you. Don’t worry.”

“How you so sure?” Yuzuru protests. “_You_ like me, but they not you, they…”

“Well… let’s say there are many things that run in the family.” Javi holds Yuzuru’s hands tighter, widening his smile. “Seriously, Yuzu: don’t worry. You are…”

“I from Japan. I come from culture so different than West.”

“Well, my sister fell in love with a Finnish guy who can’t live without vodka and sauna. That was probably even harder to understand.”

“I am _man_, Habi,” Yuzuru insists. “I know, Spain is… how you say? More _modern_, but…”

“I don’t know if my parents have ever wished that I found a Spanish woman. But what I know, is this: if they have, it was because it would be easier for me.” Javi reaches out to caress the mole under Yuzuru’s right ear. “Look, my parents are good people, really, and they only want me to be happy. It can sound cliched, but it’s true.”

Yuzuru sighs, deflating a bit.

“Sorry,” he says. “I trust in you and parents. But all is happen in same moment. Your family, the gala, and…”

“Jaaaaaaaviiiiiiiii!”

Javi’s and Yuzuru’s heads turn to where they heard the voice coming from: a slender, long dark-haired young woman is running to them, followed by a man and a woman in their fifties.

Here we are, Yuzuru thinks, nerves mingling with his gratitude for Javi, who right now is holding his hand tight instead of letting it go.

It was a mess, of course.

But a joyful mess.

Javi introduced Yuzuru to his family, then the Fernándezs settled in the flat Javi rented for them near his place, and finally they all had lunch in an Italian restaurant not far from both the apartments.

It wasn’t easy: after a few English words, Enriqueta and Antonio were unconsciously tending to speak Spanish, and Yuzuru found their strongly accented English difficult to understand anyway, just like they probably found _his_ strongly accented English difficult to understand; and then there was Laura, always teasing her brother, and all the Fernándezs’ questions about Yuzuru’s family, country, sport… Yuzuru felt tired and breathless like at the end of a free skate.

There was and there is no tension, though. If anything, the three of them were and are warm with Yuzuru, even grateful, apparently – and he thought that Javi was right, when he said that cliches are, well, trivial because they are often true: Enriqueta, Antonio and Laura are grateful to him cause he loves Javi and makes him happy.

I make Javi happy, Yuzuru repeats to himself. I make Javi happy. It’s something huge, filling him with such a joy that he would like to climb up on the Television Tower in Alexanderplatz and shout it to the world: I make Javi happy!

“… see him?”

Laura’s voice sounds like it’s coming from another dimension, but it shakes him out of his daydream and shoves him back into reality: they had just left the restaurant and are walking home. Javi and his parents are a few steps ahead of Laura and Yuzuru; and Laura just asked him who knows what.

“Excuse me?” Yuzuru says. “I not understand.”

“I was asking you how you see Javi. Do you think he’s going to make it, tonight? Yesterday I called him and he sounded _so_ anxious. And his hip… just watch how he’s walking.”

Yuzuru takes a look at Javi: under a mask of coolness and lightheartedness, he’s nervous, and he’s trying not to put too much weight on his left leg.

“Yesterday, dress rehearsal go bad,” Yuzuru says. “Habi was… very…” He can’t find the English words to adequately describe how Javi was yesterday, but Laura nods all the same: she knows her brother, of course. “But this morning class go well. Hip hurt very much, but he resist and… and he was what he can be when forget to think he’s worse than really is.” Yuzu realizes he messed up his thoughts and words, but Laura looks like she understood what he meant. She gives him a sly smile.

“How’s Javi when he forgets to think he’s worse than he actually is?” she asks, an ironic note in her voice.

Yuzu feels himself blush.

“Is very determin… determined,” he says, and he has an impression that his voice is somehow blushing too.

“When he was just a little boy, he was always dancing,” Laura says, watching her brother with a serious, fond look on her face. “Anywhere, anyway… he was always dancing. And I was always beating him up.” She laughs briefly. “I _hated_ when he danced.”

Yuzuru shook his head. “Why? At that time you dancing too, right?”

Laura’s laughter turns into a smirk. “At that time I had ballet classes every day,” she says, “while Javi was still too young for a ballet school. He was already better than me, though. That’s why I hated to see him dancing and I beat him up. But he kept on dancing regardless.” She casts a look at Yuzuru. “So yes, he can be really determined.”

“And is really in love with ballet.”

Again, that fond look on Laura’s face.

“Not only with ballet, thank God,” she says. “Thank _you_.”

Yuzuru looks down at his shoes. It’s something that doesn’t happen to him very often, being left speechless.

“So, what are you going to do in the afternoon?” Laura has probably understood his embarrassment.

“Habi must be in theatre at half past five, and before he must rest,” Yuzuru says, thankful for the new theme in their conversation. “If he want I stay with him, if he not want I leave him alone.”

“What are you going to do, in this case?”

Yuzuru shrugs. “Skating. Like this morning and yesterday afternoon.”

“Really? Didn’t you feel like touring Berlin a bit, or…”

“Yes, yes, but I miss skating. So…”

“Yeah, I can understand.” And Laura looks like she really understands.

“Now is so, for me,” Yuzuru finds himself saying. “When I’m in Toronto and skate, I miss Habi. And now I’m with Habi and miss skating. I mean, I not want to be in Toronto, I _so want_ to be here with Habi. But I not totally me, if I never skate.”

For a few steps Laura doesn’t say anything.

“Javi is coming soon to Toronto anyway, isn’t he?” she says finally. “For his choreography with the National Ballet of Canada.”

“In eight days,” Yuzuru confirms, “and he come to my club too, to talk of possible ballet camps. Between August and September.”

“Right, he did mention it. Oh, I really wish he could do both, the choreography _and_ the camps!” Laura is beaming, just like her brother when he smiles, and for a second Yuzuru feel blinded. “What do you think? Could it be that Javi will move to Toronto? From tomorrow on, I don’t believe he will have so many reasons to live in Berlin anymore. And since you are in Toronto…”

“Yes, I hope so,” Yuzuru cuts short, but that’s not what he thinks, not exactly. Well, okay: if it depended only on him and on his dreams, he would love for Javi to move to Toronto. There are Javi and _his_ dreams, though: Yuzu knows he’s one of these dreams, sure, but Javi wants and has to keep ballet at the center of his life; he could never be happy otherwise. So, Toronto will be the right choice only if Javi will find there a new, working, satisfying relationship with ballet.

“I would _love_ Javi to move to Toronto,” Laura is saying. “I’ve never been in Cana…”

“Hey, you two! Are you two walking humans or two lazy snails?”

Javi is sauntering back toward Laura and Yuzuru, while Enriqueta and Antonio are waiting in front of the building of their rented flat –

– and looking at his eyes shining like amber under the sun, Yuzuru dreams of a future where Javi is teaching at the National Ballet of Canada (not at the Toronto Cricket Club), can do some contemporary dance himself, and every company from every country wants him because he’s a famous choreographer; in the meantime Yuzuru travels the five continents to skate in shows and competitions, so there are periods of time when they don’t meet very often, but then they both come back to Toronto, and every time they find themselves breathless with bliss and love –

“So buddy-buddy already, you two?” Javi is asking. His tone is amused, but he looks so obviously proud and mirthful.

“We were actually planning to run away together, a kiss goodbye to Pietari and you,” Laura teases him.

“That’s just an excuse to run away from Helsinki,” Javi says, then he turns to Yuzuru. “Don’t trust her, she’s just taking advantage of you because she wants to leave a very cold town.”

“And her plan is move to other cold town like Toronto?” Yuzuru shakes his head. “Better run with man from Melanesia, Laura.”

They all burst into laughter. In the meantime, they’ve reached Enriqueta and Antonio.

“Okay then,” Javi says. “Mom, dad, we go home. I need to rest before going back to the theatre. Yuzuru will pick you up at seven, right? He’s got all the tickets.”

“Okay, thank you.” Antonio nods to Yuzuru. Then, to his son: “See you after the show, then.” He pats Javi’s shoulder. “_¡Mucha suerte!_”

“_La palabra que buscas es ‘mierda’, papá_.”

“Oh, _tienes razón_, Laura. _Lo siento_. _Mucha mierda_, Javier.”

“_Mucha mierda, cariño_.” Enriqueta hugs her son, suddenly and tightly. “Oh, Javier, _no puedo esperar a verte_ _bailar esta noche, es una ocasión tan import_…”

“_Sí, mamá,_ _gracias_.” Javi pulls apart from his mother, smiling to her and briefly squeezing her arms. “Now we have to go.”

“Oh, _claro_,” she says, blushing. “_Perdóname, por favor_.”

Yuzuru would like to know what they are saying. And would also like to hug Enriqueta. And Javi. Both of them, together.

Laura just gives Javi a high-five, then the three Fernándezs disappear behind the front door.

Javi and Yuzuru take a deep breath at the same time. They giggle.

“What your mom say, when hugging?” Yuzuru asks afterwards.

“Oh, she was saying how happy she is to see me dancing for the last time tonight.” Looking at Yuzuru’s face, Javi shakes his head. “No, no, she meant that she’s happy to be with me and see me in such a special occasion, however sad it can be. But I interrupted her because it hurt to listen to her, even if her intentions were good. Can you understand?”

“Yes. You and your mom, I understand both,” Yuzuru says, stroking Javi’s arm.

“Thank you. So,” Javi sighs, “it went very well, didn’t it?”

“Was easy.” Yuzuru smiles. “You have adorable family.”

“_You_ are adorable.”

Yuzuru caresses Javi’s neck, then puts his arms under Javi’s armpits to help him walking, and they slowly head home.

“Anyway, what you want do now?” Yuzuru asks after a few steps.

Javi brushes his lips on his temple. “Well, what I really, _really_ would like to do is have some wild sex with you.”

Despite Javi’s teasing tone, Yuzuru feels a sparkle ignite and run down all the way from the top of his head to his throat, his chest, his groin, and he closes his eyes to enjoy it better. After a deep breath, he opens his eyes again.

“I not sure that wild sex can helping to _rest_,” he says.

“No, unfortunately not,” Javi says, squeezing Yuzuru’s shoulder. “So what about making out for…” he checks his watch, “for a couple of hours?”

Yuzuru smiles. “But if making out, then we want have wild sex,” he teases.

“Well, great. I’d rather think about wild sex than about the gala.”

Under the thin layer of humor, Yuzuru catches Javi’s anxiety, Javi’s fear. He would do anything to help him forget anxiety and fear even for a few seconds. And making out with his boyfriend for a couple of hours isn’t a sacrifice anyway, is it? Yuzuru leans in and kisses Javi’s neck.

“Making out is perfect,” he whispers, enjoying the goosebumps on Javi’s skin.

“Sure you take everything?”

“Sure.”

“Fine. So…”

“Wait, Yuzu. Before leaving, I want to give you something.”

“What?”

“This is a pass to come backstage. I’m not really sure why I asked for it. I want you to enjoy the whole gala, and of course you can’t hang around backstage while there’s a show going on, but… it makes me feel better, knowing that you could come to me, if you, if _we_ wish. It makes me feel safer.”

“Oh, Habi. My Habi.”

“Always.”

“I have thing for you too. Wait!”

“Yuzu?”

“Here.”

“A necklace like yours? Nene, that’s so…”

“Not ‘like yours’. Is my necklace.”

“But…”

“Necklace always with me and give me good luck. Okay, lucky charms is silly thing, but for me is important that you… well, that you have part of me with you. Always, but today more. I know you not can wear it when dancing, so maybe you keep in bag, or…”

Javi is holding him so tight that Yuzuru can’t talk, can’t breathe anymore. He can only hear Javi’s voice whispering broken Spanish words in his ear, inhale Javi’s skin scent and feel Javi’s hair on his temple, his cheek. So that’s what heaven looks like, Yuzuru thinks.

“Come in!”

Javier opens the dressing room door he has just knocked on. When she sees him, Polina stops putting on her make-up and smiles through the mirror.

“Javi! Come on in.”

“Ready, Pol?” Javier closes the door behind him. “In ten minutes you’ll be on stage.”

“I’m _soooo_ ready. Are you?”

“I’m afraid I’ll never be ready for this, so… yeah, let’s say I am.”

Polina’s still smiling sweetly while she gives a last brush of rouge on her cheeks, but her eyes in the mirror are serious.

“You’ll kill it tonight, Javi,” she says, closing her make-up bag. “You are a fantastic choreographer.”

You are. Not: You’re going to be. You _are_.

Javier reaches for her shoulder, squeezes it affectionately.

“Thank you. Shall we go?”

Polina puts her hand on his.

“With pleasure,” she says, and stands up.

“Here we go,” says Laura’s voice in the dark, quivering with emotion.

Yes, Yuzuru knows the gala program by heart. Here they go.

White writing comes to life on the backdrop.

LUST

Choreography

JAVIER FERNÁNDEZ

Music

TORI AMOS

Artists

POLINA SEMIONOVA

ALEJANDRO VIRELLES

Yuzuru feels Laura’s hand search for his. Feels his heart thunder in his throat and ears. He grabs Laura’s hand.

Two dancers appear in a dim spotlight.

Then, the music starts.

Backstage, Javier watches Polina and Alejandro. They’re perfect. And for the first time, watching them dancing from this lateral, new point of view, he thinks it’s a beautiful choreography. Very beautiful. And it was him who created it. _Him_. Him and Yuzu, actually: what’s on stage is a _pas de deux_ as well as their first night together, Javier aching because of his hip and Yuzu aching because of his ankle, both crying and suffering, but also kissing and giving themselves to one another, and Javier is proud and moved at the same time. Proud of himself, because he conceived those enchanted steps. Moved because he was able to love and suffer so much that he could see the essence of love and suffering and give it a new shape. Proud, moved and confident about the future, new hopes burning in his chest with as much strength as the pain throbbing in his hip, groin, in his whole leg.

Polina and Alejandro take their final pose, the music fades away, the lights go down.

For a moment, silence. Javier swallows. Is the theatre going to stay like this, icily quiet and distant?

For a moment.

Then, the roar of the audience applauding.

Yuzuru is clapping his hands so hard and fast that they are red and burning. But he’s not the only one, he realizes: the whole audience is clapping wildly.

So that’s what Javi and I are together, think Yuzuru, and an immense swarm of fireflies takes off in his stomach.

“Yuzuru… you’re crying,” Laura says. She’s smiling, and her cheeks glisten with tears. He smiles back.

“You crying too.”

They both make a weird sound. Maybe a sob, maybe the beginning of a laugh.

Polina and Alejandro have to go back on stage four times and bow to the audience. Okay, Polina is a star, one of the greatest _étoiles_ in the world, but four calls _during_ and not at the end of a show is quite something anyway. So his choreography was successful, wasn’t it? It certainly seems it was.

Javier feels his eyes brim with the first tears – then Polina is crushing into him, wrapping him in a tight hug.

“You were sublime,” Javier says, stroking her back.

“Thanks to you,” she says, her voice full of emotions. “What good choreo, Javi! I want nobody else than me to dance it, forever and ever.”

“Forever and ever with me, though,” Alejandro protests by her side, then squeezes Javier’s arm. “You really, really, really nailed it, Javi.”

“Oh God! _Gracias_, Al.” Javier pulls away from Polina and hugs Alejandro for a brief moment; then the dancer puts a hand on his partner’s shoulder.

“Pol, I’m afraid we must go. You have to get ready for _Sinatra_,” he says.

“Right.” Polina smiles one last time to Javier. “Shit for Forsythe, Javi,” then she runs away with Alejandro.

Right. Polina and Daniil Simkin will be the last to dance: Twyla Tharp’s _Sinatra Suite_. If _they_ have to go and get ready, what about _him_? Forsythe’s _In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated_, featuring Iana and him, is the second to last choreography of the gala.

He must go.

Dress up.

Warm up.

And while all the bliss for _Lust_ is retreating, Javier realizes that the whole time he has put all his body weight on his right leg, because the left one hurts too much.

Shaking off a shiver, he limps to the dressing room.

Intermission.

Yuzuru goes to the bar with the Fernándezs to make a toast in honor of Javi and his success. He listens to them, lets them talk about how magnificent _Lust_ was, how the audience reacted, how Javi will become a great and famous choreographer. He smiles, and agrees, and cheers. But inside of him there’s a clock ticking.

Ten more minutes of intermission.

Five more performances.

About forty minutes, then Javi will dance his last dance.

When Javier goes to the _barre_ in the backstage, Iana is already there, warming up.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Javier starts warming up by her side. God, his hip hurts as if a million hammers were planting nails in it.

“I heard the audience clapping their hands so much for _Lust_,” she says after a while. Her voice is charged with anxiety. “So it was successful, wasn’t it? Congratulations, Javi.”

“Thank you.”

They keep warming up, quietly. After a couple of minutes, though, Iana breaks the silence again. “How’s your hip?” She’s not looking at him.

Javier does look at her, instead. And he catches the tension in her features, in the muscles of her neck and shoulders.

“As usual,” he answers.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice is still anxious, maybe even more than some moments ago, and suddenly Javier understands: it’s not the usual agitation that any ballerina would feel before going on stage. What Iana feels is fear. Fear he won’t make it. Fear they will dance poorly. Fear, even, that he will make her fall.

Iana doesn’t trust him, and she’s right.

Javier clings desperately to the _barre_.

No.

He won’t let his damned hip do this not only to him, but to his partner as well. He’s always been a great _porteur_, his partners have always unconditionally trusted him. And now that he’s going to dance for the last time, dance his favorite choreography, dance with one of the best ballerinas all over the world – are their feelings and the atmosphere they’ll create on stage going to be _this_, now? Fear, pain, lack of trust?

Fuck, _no_.

He won’t let coxarthrosis ruin his last dance. Coxarthrosis has already won the war: from tomorrow on, it will force him to leave behind a whole lot of what he’s done, dreamt of and achieved since when he was a toddler, saw Baryshnikov on TV and started mimicking his movements. Coxarthrosis is already forcing him to change his life and to give up on nearly everything he treasures. Well, coxarthrosis won’t force him to dance shamefully bad tonight. If it has to be his last dance, it will be a glorious dance.

Javier pulls away from the _barre_.

“Iana, what about rehearsing the most critical moments?” he says.

Iana, who has been focused on her warm-up, jerks her head to Javier, casting him a short, deeply serious glance.

“Yes, okay,” she says finally.

First critical moment.

_In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated_ is a complex choreography, with difficult steps, lifts and positions, and with lightning-quick changes. You need not only precision, but confidence as well: a fraction of a fraction of a second of hesitation, and you’ll be late from then on. Until tonight Javier has been hurting too much to feel confident, but right now he’s angry enough to _be_ confident. _Anger, rage, fear… is _energy_, Habi_. The first critical moment goes by, smooth as glass.

Second critical moment.

Javier’s hip and whole left leg are screaming, but it doesn’t matter – on the contrary: it’s an incitement. _And when short program, all energy inside… all _rage_ inside… become strength. I was strong enough to skate with pain_. Javier holds Iana, precise and confident, and the second critical moment is behind them already – and the third one, the fourth –

– until Iana looks relaxed and confident.

“Iana, Javier! Your turn in four minutes.”

Javier looks at Iana.

“Our turn in four minutes,” he repeats.

She smiles.

“It will be alright, Javi,” she says, giving him a light kiss on his cheek before taking off her leg warmers.

Will it really be alright?

Javier takes a deep breath, make some rotations of his head, his shoulders. Then he reaches for his sport bag, retrieve Yuzu’s necklace from a side pocket and puts it on.

Of course it will be alright. Coxarthrosis has won the war, but not the last battle.

The last battle, _he_ will win it.

IN THE MIDDLE, SOMEWHAT ELEVATED

Choreography

WILLIAM FORSYTHE

Music

THOM WILLEMS

Artists

IANA SALENKO

JAVIER FERNÁNDEZ

Yuzuru’s breath is so short and shallow that he fears he could have an asthma attack, if he wasn’t so focus on the dark stage only a few rows of seats ahead of him.

And when the lights go up, what he’s seeing seriously risks triggering his asthma.

Javi has the necklace on.

Music.

Yuzuru knows a lot about this choreography. It’s Javi’s favorite, and when Javi was chosen to dance it in this gala, he tried to explain to Yuzuru what it is all about, and why he loves it so much. He told Yuzuru how it has a quite traditional structure – solos, _pas de deux_ and _de trois_, collective moments – while the steps are so _not_ traditional: asymmetries, unbalanced moves, and off-axis transitions, lifts and poses. He told how filling that structure with those steps is like putting bad words, curses and some street slang into the elegance and musicality of the Latin syntax. Also, Yuzuru has been watching many clips of this choreography on YouTube.

And yet, watching _In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated_ live, performed not by Laurent Hilaire, but by _Javier Fernández_, is something else completely. The beauty of what Yuzuru’s seeing hits him like a wind so strong and merciless that it tears a layer of skin off of him.

Javi and Iana are on stage, not far away from each other but not so close either. They look at each other, then Iana just exits the scene, and Javi’s solo begins. My Javi’s solo, Yuzuru thinks, my heaven-sent Javi. The exact work of each of Javi’s muscles, the power and grace of each of Javi’s steps. The chemical reaction between Javi’s body and each of the choreographic elements, generating emotions.

After Javi – and the long applause from the audience, Yuzuru shouting “Bravo!” with tears dripping into his mouth – it’s Iana’s turn. Yuzuru couldn’t meet her or see her rehearsing; some time ago, he watched her on YouTube: her solo as the Sugar Plum Fairy in _The Nutcracker_ and as Aurora in _The Sleeping Beauty_. She’s a dream. Her legs alone could tell a whole tale. She’s so petite, seemingly fragile, but instead she can do _this_. And Javi, his Javi, was chosen to do _this_ with her.

Here comes the _pas de deux_.

Yuzuru has never given a single thought to pair skating or ice dance: he’s too skinny and light to lift a partner. Even if he was muscular and strapping, though, he wouldn’t like to skate with someone else: being in charge of himself is hard enough. Javi, on the contrary… he looks so confident when he lifts Iana, when he makes her pirouette, or when he just holds her. Confident and calm, with a look in his eyes that seems to tell: trust me. How can he, how can anyone manage to deserve somebody else’s full trust? Javi can, apparently. His hip is worn out, his stomach wrecked by too many anti-inflammatories, but he can.

He can and looks out for Iana, he can and dances, he can and charms the audience so much that even the usual, random coughing in the stalls is missing.

He can. And Yuzuru knows he’s never seen anything more beautiful than his Javi and ballet becoming one.

Iana _en pointe_, Javier holding her hand, the two of them staring at each other somehow dangerously: the final pose.

Darkness.

Iana and Javier get ready for the final bow, the lights go up.

Applause.

Thunderous, sure.

Javier smiles. He made it. He really made it. Iana is bowing to the audience, her face shining with joy. She trusted him, and he didn’t disappoint her. He won the last battle against the coxarthrosis. The last battle. The last dance…

Suddenly, awareness seeps into his elation.

Those steps, those jumps, those pirouettes have been his very last ones on a stage. He’s twenty-eight, ballet is his life, and in his life he will never dance ballet again. Never.

Among all the people clapping and screaming, he thinks he can recognize Yuzu’s voice. How he wishes Yuzu was here, now that he feels like crumbling – unavoidably collapsing, like a building that surrenders to demolition.

Yuzuru sees all the joy draining out of Javi’s features, sees his smile turning into a mask put over sheer pain. He stands up.

“Yuzu, what…” Laura stutters.

“I must go.”

Hastily apologizing to the people whose feet he’s treading on – _Entschuldigung_: what a weird word – Yuzuru gets out of the seat row, wondering where he has to go to get backstage, then he catches sight of a small door close to the stage and heads to it, he’s nearly running now and fumbling in his pockets to retrieve the pass Javi gave him, here’s the door, he’s about to hold its handle when a steward puts a hand on his arm, “_Wo gehen Sie hin?_”, Yuzuru shows him the pass but there’s no time to lose, he launches himself up a short flight of stairs, he hears the audience cheering on his right and he smells a peculiar smell, old wood and rosin and sweat and dusty fabrics and it must be the smell of backstage, Yuzuru heeds his ears and nose and yes, here are the flats – here is Javi exiting the stage, the mask hiding his pain has started to break and when he sees Yuzuru it disintegrates completely, Javi opens wide his eyes and gasps and just runs to Yuzuru and takes him in his arms, “It’s over, Yuzu, it’s over,” Yuzuru holds him as tight as he can and Javi cries in the crook of his neck, “I will never dance again, Yuzu, never,” and how Yuzuru wishes he could say something sensible and useful, but there are people all around staring puzzled at them, and a guy whispering in English: “You can’t stay here, the audience will hear you,” of course they will, so Yuzuru nods and starts backing away from the stage without letting Javi go, “There,” a female voice directs him and Yuzuru sees Polina in a silky blue dress pointing at a staircase behind his shoulder, he nods again then in a few seconds Javi and him are shuffling down the stairs and through a door like a two-headed and eight-limbed monster, now there’s a long corridor, on their left a room with vending machines and chairs, “Here, Habi,” Yuzuru walks through the door and heads for a chair, sits down with Javi in his lap.

If only he could find the right words, Yuzuru would meticulously utter them one by one in his labored English to comfort Javi. Right now, though, while Javi’s sobbing in his neck and clawing at his shoulders so desperately, Yuzuru thinks what Javi thinks and feels what Javi feels, because Javi is the man he loves and, also, because one day (near? Far?) Yuzuru will be the one sobbing after his last skate. Just like the man he loves, one day Yuzuru will have to face the shattering of his identity for how he knows it: being a skater. How can he comfort Javi, who’s only ever been a ballet dancer, right when he just stopped being a ballet dancer?

“Once upon a time,” Yuzuru started, “in a land… well, not so away, was a boy who love skating, but he had injury and can skate no more. So he left and hide in woods. There he always crying, but one day he come to a place with no tree and see a boy. He was so beautiful boy, and he dancing wonderful. The injured boy was so moved that, for first time, he cried for emotion not for sadness.” Javi isn’t sobbing anymore, just whimpering softly. “In this moment, other boy saw him and stop to dance,” Yuzuru goes on . “They start talk, so injured boy found that other boy is prince who lost in woods. They talked for hours and made friendship; they like each other much, so in end they helping each other: lost prince heal injured boy, injured boy help lost prince to find path that leading out of woods. And when they no more injured and lost, they decide to take path together…”

“…and they lived happily ever after?” Javi asks, lifting his head and looking intently at Yuzuru.

Well, Yuzuru thinks, they lived happily as much as life let them. This is not what Javi needs to hear, though, so he smiles and answers: “Yes.”

Javi sighs, his whimpering calming down. He’s so beautiful it hurts, with his eyes and cheeks shining with tears.

“What a lovely fairy tale,” Javi whispers, his voice still wet and trembling. “I’m afraid there’s a mistake, thought.”

“Mhm?” Yuzuru wipes his boyfriend’s tears away with his thumb and all the delicacy he’s able to put in this simple gesture. “What mistake?”

Javi smiles tentatively, rubs his nose against Yuzuru’s.

“The prince,” he says. “The prince was the injured boy, not the lost one.” Javi caresses Yuzuru’s eyebrows, cheekbones. Love makes his eyes shine even more than tears. “My prince.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you see on stage just an excerpt of Forsythe's "In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated" (not the whole thing), you usually watch only the pas de deux; here I chose to put three short excerpts together in order to have both Javi and Iana dancing a solo. Here are some links:  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrw8lZMlos8 (Javi)  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLWDtbHNzxw&t=10s (Iana)  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjMnCZB-oD4 (pas de deux)  
Iana Salenko is a great ballerina, and Daniil Simkin (I just mention him, I know) is one of the greatest if not the greatest, nowadays: I sincerely recommend you to take a look at their performances.  
Next time: epilogue!


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last few days were a rollercoaster of fear and hope, pain and love: the worst ballet classes of his life, rehearsing with clenched teeth, his family visiting him and getting to know Yuzu, the gala and all the tears he shed, the hugs with his colleagues, the pride in the eyes of his teachers, the late dinner with his family, Yuzu’s warm and solid embrace.

It’s very likely it will rain, sooner or later. Outside, the sky is milky and opaque, the chestnut tree’s leaves casting just pale shadows on the walls of the apartment. Javier would like to sleep a bit longer, but he can’t. Not only because of his hip, throbbing more painfully than ever, and not because he’s too tired to rest, his bones weighing like lead: he’s just bursting with memories, emotions and feelings. The last few days were a rollercoaster of fear and hope, pain and love: the worst ballet classes of his life, rehearsing with clenched teeth, his family visiting him and getting to know Yuzu, the gala and all the tears he shed, the hugs with his colleagues, the pride in the eyes of his teachers, the late dinner with his family, Yuzu’s warm and solid embrace. As soon as they got home, he asked Yuzu for a bit of cuddling, and they slipped in their bed naked and held tight, exchanging light kisses and caresses, until Javier fell asleep. But he’s woken up so many times that now the whole night feels like a long, sleepless wait for… what? Javier doesn’t know.

What he knows is that Yuzu is awake too, his back flushed against Javier’s chest and their legs entangled: when they went to bed, Javier insisted on lying like this, to hell his arthrosis: his hip was hurting so much that his sleeping position couldn’t make much difference, and he wanted so badly to hold Yuzu tight, to feel under his lips the thin, childish hair growing on Yuzu’s nape. Now Yuzu doesn’t move, but Javier can tell from his breath that he’s not sleeping, and –

“Habi, can’t sleep?”

Yuzu’s voice is so sweet and caring. Breathtaking. Javier softly brushes his lips on Yuzu’s nape.

“Too tired,” he answers. “What about you?”

“Too tired,” Yuzu echoes him after a moment, as if he had to choose what to tell. Javier knows that Yuzu isn’t lying, but he also knows that his mind is an intricate maze, stuffed full with perceptions, thoughts and feelings, so he doesn’t insist, he doesn’t try to enter the labyrinth.

“I don’t know how I could have done without you, in the last three days,” he whispers on his boyfriend’s skin. Since Yuzu doesn’t say anything, Javier proceeds: “I’m just sorry it wasn’t an actual holiday, for you. I wish we could have walked and enjoyed Berlin, and… been carefree, you know. Happy.”

“Is no holiday, Habi.” Yuzu turns in Javier’s arms, then presses his mouth against Javier’s throat. “Is our life, my and your. With good thing and bad thing, and is okay. Is okay, if we do thing together. If we face thing together.”

Javier feels his legs tremble. If he stood up, he would probably fall.

“Can I do a good thing together with you?” he asks. He feels Yuzu’s smile vibrate on his Adam’s apple.

“All good thing you want.”

“All _all_?”

“All all all. Actually, you can do me also some _bad_ thing.”

Javier slips a finger under Yuzu’s chin to lift his face up.

“Okay, but let’s start with a good one,” he says, his lips on Yuzu’s.

The first kiss is slow, deep, like tasting a delicious Barolo, feeling it spreading around the tongue, seeping between the teeth. And yet Yuzu’s taste is a million times better and more addicting even than the king of wines. Javier nibbles at Yuzu’s lower lip, so full and soft, then passes his tongue over Yuzu’s peculiar shaped upper lip – the wings of a flying bird. He paints a constellation of small pecks on Yuzu’s mouth, brushes his tongue on the other’s teeth before searching for his tongue and another deep kiss and that taste again: warm and sweet with a pinch of spice. Hot chocolate with Cayenne pepper. The taste which is Yuzu and is not enough, never enough.

“Habi…”

Javier moves his lips to Yuzu’s jawline, under his ear.

“Yes?”

“Habi, if we keep on like this…” Yuzu whispers, his voice hoarse.

“If we keep on like this, we’re going to make love,” Javier says, his mouth on the smooth skin of Yuzu’s neck. “Yes, that’s the idea.”

His body shuddering, Yuzu takes Javier’s face in his hands to better look at him. 

“But your hip hurt,” he says. “Hurt very much. If we make love…”

“It will hurt even more, I know.” Javier nods. “My condition won’t change much, though. Instead, if we _don’t _make love, my heart will hurt too.” He puts a leg around Yuzu’s waist, pushes his groin against his. Yuzu whines, then caresses Javier’s leg, ankle calf knee and thigh, his hand leaving a wake of shivers behind.

“But if hip hurt too much we stop, okay?” Yuzu says.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Yuzu says again, and in a second he’s on top of Javier, on his lips the impudent smirk he always shows when he knows exactly what he’s capable of, and challenges you to prove him wrong. “You have no idea what you get into.”

How I missed this part of him, Javier suddenly realizes. My naughty, powerful, a bit scary Yuzu.

“Then show me,” Javier says, smiling.

When Javier gets out of the bathroom after a long shower, Yuzu is sitting in front of his computer, wet pushed back hair and an old cerulean t-shirt, torn and unsewn at the collar, that Javier wears when he takes ballet classes and that is too large for Yuzu, hanging loosely from one of his shoulders. Loosely and sexily. As though he was pulled by a magnet, Javier walks behind him and leans down to kiss him between his neck and that naked, sinful shoulder.

“What are you doing, working?” he says.

“No. I do a bit social-watching.” That’s how Yuzu calls his not so frequent raids in the realm of social networks. “I did coffee for you,” he says then, reaching behind him to caress Javier’s hair and leaning against him. “Maybe my tea ready too.” 

“Let me check.”

The jug is full, and the smell coming from it makes Javier understand that the coffee will be disgusting. He smiles: he doesn’t give a damn about drinking very bad coffee, as long as it’s made by Yuzu – and that speaks volumes about how much he loves his boyfriend. Javier pours some coffee in one cup, some tea in another, then goes back to the living room.

“Here,” he says, putting the cup of tea near Yuzu’s computer. “What would you like to eat? In the fridge there’s still some…”

“_One of the best _pas de deux_ I’ve ever seen_,” Yuzu reads on the screen. “Then: _Awesome gala, especially Semionova was great, not only in Twyla Tharp but also in a wonderful choreography I didn’t know: _Lust_ by Javier Fernández_.” He smiles to Javier. “I put hashtag on Twitter to read opinion of people at theatre yesterday,” he explains. “I find newspapers too. But I not understand what they saying. Google Translate is okay for tweets, but not for long German article.”

Yuzu stands up and let him sit in front of the computer. Javier scrolls down the tweets first, then the reviews: there are just three, two Berlin news sites and a specialized German magazine – ballet never draws too much attention – but they’re good. Actually, two are _very_ good. Also the tweets are not so many: usually, ballet audiences aren’t the social-network-freak kind. They’re enthusiastic, though, their writers pleasantly surprised at the new choreographer they just discovered. And what’s great about tweets is that their readers are not only German, so… so…

“Want to bet?” Yuzu whispers, putting his chin on Javier’s shoulder.

“To bet?”

“Today is Sunday, but I bet tomorrow you get much calls and e-mails. Ballet companies who want _Lust_, or want that you make choreography for them.”

“Do you really think so?”

Yuzu’s eyes are shining so bright that the somber Berlin day looks suddenly sunny.

“You wait and see,” Yuzu says, smiling. Javier can’t help smiling back.

“Okay,” he says, “what’s my prize, if I win?”

Yuzu wraps Javier’s neck with his arms, rests his cheek on Javier’s head.

“_My_ prize,” he says, “because I will definitely win.”

“You bragger.”

“_Bra_-what?”

“Never mind.” Javier bites softly into one of Yuzu’s fingers. “So, what’s _your_ prize, if… sorry… _when_ you win?”

“Well, you work with Shae-Lynn and make choreography with her for my next free skate.”

Javier swiftly turns his head back to look at his boyfriend. Yuzu would never make such a proposal only because it’d help them to meet more often: he respects too much both his skating and Javier. If he’s making such a proposal, it’s because he really _believes_ Javier is a great choreographer.

“It will be an honor,” Javier says, looking at Yuzu with all the seriousness and love he can express with his eyes.

“Thank you,” Yuzu says softly before leaning down to pull Javier into a kiss. A long, trustful kiss. “What if you win?” he asks afterwards. “Okay, is impossible, but just to…”

“So, since it’s impossible,” Javier interrupts him, “can I ask for… let’s say, for a retroactive reward?” He stands up and puts his arms around Yuzu’s waist.

“Alright,” Yuzu says, “today I generous. What rewa… HABIIIIIII!”

Javier has just scooped him up.

“HABIYOURHIIIIIP!”

“FUCKIIIIIT!”

Yuzu laughs all the way to the bedroom.

Yuzuru pays the driver, gets out of the taxi and take his earphones off. For a moment he just stands still, thinking about nothing at all; then he crosses the road and stops on the opposite sidewalk, the one running along the railing of Tegel Flughafen’s outdoor parking lot.

It’s windy, of course. One of the things Yuzuru has learned about Berlin is that it’s almost always windy. He closes his eyes, and the wind carries him the sight and scent of Javi no more than half an hour ago, when they said good-bye. Javi wanted to go with him to the airport, but Yuzuru insisted he didn’t: okay, he would have welcomed thirty more minutes together, but Javi must rest.

Yuzuru says good-bye to Berlin too – to the wind, and to the weight of its past, to the raging vibrations of its air – and walks into the airport. 

What’s awaiting him is flying to Frankfurt (one hour and ten minutes), waiting there (one hour and twenty-five minutes), flying to Toronto (eight hours and twenty minutes): basically, it will be a very long day. He doesn’t mind, though. His life’s so crowded, busy, and noisy, that lingering in an impersonal fuselage, out of time and out of space, is what he needs to reorganize the stuffed wardrobe of his mind. He’s going to fold a thought here, hang a memory there; and, although he knows that behind the wardrobe there’s not Narnia but a storm, he won’t let the rain scare him, when it comes again. He has learned that his inner storm isn’t an enemy; it’s just one part of him, hard but unavoidable, ugly but necessary.

The check-in is quick and easy, and Yuzuru queues at the metal detector.

_We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on... that’s who we really are_, Javi said to him once, then he giggled and confessed he had been quoting Sirius Black, Harry Potter’s godfather. Yuzuru doesn’t know whether it was Sirius Black’s sentence or Javi’s giggle that helped him (he leans toward the giggle), but since then he’s not afraid of his own dark side. Many fans noted that his new programs are expressing something not only more mature but gloomier, and some of them were and still are concerned about that. They don’t know that now he can live with his worst – and use it, even show it – exactly because he doesn’t dread it anymore; because he realized that the purity he’s always been searching for doesn’t mean estrangement from the world, but balance, love. Choices.

The wait at the gate doesn’t last long. Time to board; time to really leave Berlin, and Javi.

Javi, who helped and helps him so much. Javi, whose mind is a Mediterranean island, lush with myrtle, olive trees, jays, dolphins, and children playing on the foreshore.

Yuzuru puts his hand luggage in the overhead compartment, bows and smiles to the woman next seat – she’s reading a German newspaper and apparently has not a clue about who he is – then sits down. Seat belt, earphones. Yuzuru closes his eyes and immediately sees Javi. Javi’s arms around his torso, Javi’s warm scent in each of his pores.

“Please, take it back,” Javi said when they parted, holding out Yuzuru’s necklace.

“No, Habi, I give it to you.”

“But it’s always been yours. It has been, it _is_ fantastic to wear it, but…”

“You keep it, please.” Yuzuru caressed Javi’s naked throat. _This way you’ll always have a part of me with you_, he was going to say, but it was so sappy. (Even if that’s how Yuzuru felt in that moment: sappy.) “Then, when you in Toronto, we decide who wear it,” he finally said.

Javier smiled.

“A lucky charm for two?” he asked.

“Something like so.” Yuzuru put the necklace back around Javi’s neck.

The aircraft has taxied to the runway, and Yuzuru opens up his eyes. He’s listening to an old song – _Here Comes the Rain Again_ by Eurythmics – and hasn’t heard anything, but the captain must have just said ‘Cabin crew ready for take-off’.

Eight days. Only eight days, then Javi will be in Toronto to work on his choreography for the National Ballet of Canada, _Otoñal_, and to talk with the heads of the Cricket Club about a summer ballet camp – and about teaching there on a regular basis. Will it ever happen? Will Javi start a new life in Toronto? Or will he get more interesting proposals from ballet schools and companies in Berlin, Spain, anywhere around the world? Who knows. And who knows how their life, Javi’s and Yuzu’s, will change, whether Javi will move to Toronto or they will try to manage a long-distance relationship.

The aircraft starts moving, now is running, now is taking off, it’s already flying toward the clouds that divide the sky from the earth.

Yuzuru turns his head to the window, watches Berlin getting smaller and smaller. Down there, somewhere close to the river, there’s Javi’s flat, and there’s Javi: very probably, sprawled in his favorite armchair, his legs stretched on the pouffe and Effie in his lap, drinking a cup of coffee and chatting with his sister and parents, a tired but peaceful look on his face. The look of someone who made it.

Am I scared of the future, now that I cannot totally plan it anymore?, Yuzuru wonders. No, he answers to himself – immediately, confidently. No, because he has Javi, whatever the future brings, may it be the quad Axel or another injury, a victory or a loss. He has Javi, he has love. He will, he _can_, face the rain.

_I want to breathe in the open wind_

_I want to kiss like lovers do_

_I want to dive into your ocean_

Touching the only necklace he’s now wearing, Yuzuru imagines Javi doing the same. And smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, my second fic has come to an end... I hope it was worth reading for all of you, anyway: thanx to my amazing beta, LadyLightning, for her work and support; and thanx to you all for reading and commenting! All the best <3

**Author's Note:**

> Rough translation of the Japanese lullaby: "It’s time to sleep, sleep peacefully / It’s time to sleep, this child will grow into a kind person / Thanks, kami, for this angel/ It’s time to sleep on your mother’s breast, sleep peacefully".  
Thank you so much for reading <3


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